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Woodlands school survivors say good riddance to final building

Goodbye and good riddance, said dozens of survivors of Woodlands School as they watched the demolition Tuesday of the 133-year-old centre block tower, the last remnants of an institution known as the Provincial Lunatic Asylum when it was built in 1878.

Workers demolish the last section of Woodlands school in New Westminster, Tuesday, October 18, 2011.

Photograph by: Jason Payne
, PNG

METRO VANCOUVER -- Goodbye and good riddance, said dozens of survivors of Woodlands School as they watched the demolition Tuesday of the 133-year-old centre block tower, the last remnant of an institution known as the Provincial Lunatic Asylum when it was built in 1878.

"Today is a triumphant day for me, it's a dream come true," Carol Dauphinais, a Woodlands survivor, told about 150 people who came to watch the New Westminster building being torn down.

"I thought I'd never see the day when this place was knocked down," she said. "It will put memories in the dirt where they belong."

Dauphinais said later during an interview that she was put in Woodlands when she was 16 after being in a series of foster homes.

"I died a thousand deaths the first time I lived there," she recalled. "I had no idea what was going on."

She was told by staff that she was retarded and would never be normal, she added.

"They didn't have to tell me I was retarded — my parents did a good job of that," Dauphinais said.

During a trip out of Woodlands to visit a relative in 1963, she ran away and proved everyone wrong.

"I got a job and worked for 33 years," she said, proudly adding that she even became a union shop steward during her years working in hospitals.

She said she still would like an apology from the government for the fear and abuse she suffered at the facility, which closed in 1996.

The cellblock tower was the last remaining major building at the site, which housed almost 1,500 mentally disabled children during its peak. Investigations found about 20 per cent of children suffered systemic physical, mental and sexual abuse at the facility.

The asylum name was changed to the Provincial Hospital for the Insane in 1897. In 1950, it became known as the Woodlands School, when it began housing mentally disabled children, as well as runaways, orphans and wards of the state.

The site now is being redeveloped for residential use. Fires destroyed the facility's other buildings in 2008.

Survivors of the school filed a class-action lawsuit in 2002 and 850 former students were expected to be eligible to receive compensation.

The provincial government agreed in 2009 to settle with Woodlands survivors for between $3,000 and $150,000, depending on the level of abuse each person suffered.

The settlement was reached following a report by former B.C. ombudsman Dulcie McCallum that documented systemic abuse at the school.

The courts have excluded survivors who suffered abuse before Aug. 1, 1974, which is when the Crown Proceedings Act took effect, giving citizens the right to sue the B.C. government for wrongdoing.

Advocates have urged the government to ignore the 1974 cutoff date and compensate all those who suffered abuse, but the government has so far refused.

In August, B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix called on the government to provide compensation for all former Woodlands students who were abused, not just those who were there after 1974.

"Today, survivors of Woodland will witness the demolition of the centre block where so many suffered tragic and horrific abuse," Dix said Tuesday in a statement.

"While tearing down this site will provide some relief to former students, it will still not close one of the darkest chapters of B.C. history."

Faith Bodnar, executive director of the B.C. Association for Community Living, told Tuesday's gathering for the demolition that Woodlands "symbolizes a dark part of our history that we must always remember, continue to learn from and never return to."

Bill McArthur, a Woodlands resident between 1964 and 1975, said while standing in front of the cellblock tower that he can still remember the fear of living on ward 74 next door.

When he was five or six, he recalled, he was stripped naked and left on an open veranda in winter.

He said he is upset that the government has failed to provide compensation to even the restricted number of survivors qualifying for it.

"This government has totally jacked us around," McArthur said, complaining that so far, it has only provided Woodlands files to eight people to enable them to support their claims.

"The government sold this land for $18 million but not a dime has gone to the survivors," he said.

"The only way closure can happen is if all the victims can claim the compensation they deserve," McArthur said.

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